By Gene Triplett

OKLAHOMA CITY– Actress turned writer-director Famke Janssen said she chose Oklahoma as the setting for her film “Bringing Up Bobby” because it provided the perfect background for her “Bonnie and Clyde-esque” story.

Famke Janssen

“I’d seen the Round Barn and I’d seen Pops and I’d seen all these places where I thought it would make it really interesting,” she said, ” … and there’s something about Oklahoma, where you still have a train coming right through town.”

She spoke to journalists Saturday night during a gala wrap party at a Nichols Hills residence, in a neighborhood where some of the filming took place. It was the first time she had agreed to be interviewed since filming on the $1.5 million production began on July 19 on locations in and around Oklahoma City, Edmond, Arcadia and Guthrie.

Filming was completed Friday.

“I was introduced to Oklahoma through my boyfriend Cole Frates and, being a foreigner, even though I’ve lived in the United States for about 20 years in New York, I thought it was a unique and different place, very American in a way that I think New York is sort of its own little country.

“I was fascinated by it, it intrigued me and Cole and I just sort of started developing this idea … which became ‘Bringing Up Bobby.’ And Oklahoma just seemed the right setting.

“I kind of felt like my space ship had landed because it was so different from what I have experienced growing up in Holland and living in New York. It really just inspired me.”

Janssen said another enticement for filming in the Sooner state was its Film Enhancement Rebate Program, which offers a 35 percent return on film production expenditures made within the state.

The film stars Milla Jovovich (“Resident Evil”), Marcia Cross (“Desperate Housewives”), Bill Pullman (“Sleepless in Seattle”), Rory Cochrane (“Dazed and Confused”) and newcomer Spencer List as Bobby.

The film marks the directorial debut of Janssen, who is best known for her starring roles in films such as the “X-Men” trilogy, “GoldenEye” and “Taken.”

“Bringing Up Bobby” is a comedy-drama about a con-artist named Olive (Jovovich) who escapes to Oklahoma with her son Bobby to try to create a better life for both.

Filming has involved the use of many Oklahoma cast and crew members and among the executive producers are locals Chad Burns from Indion Productions, David and Maryann Johndrow from Johndrow Vinyards, Steve and Renee Knox and Cole Frates.

Janssen also complimented the “kindness and generosity” offered by many Oklahomans during the production.

The Wrap and Ain’t It Cool News are reporting that Ben Affleck and Rachel Weisz have joined the cast of a Terrence Malick film, set to begin filming in in Bartlesville, OK  in October.  Affleck was recently spotted at the Broken Arrow Bass Pro shop, where an employee reported Affleck said he was filming a movie, and researching a role as a fisherman.

According to the Wrap, the project, a “romantic drama,” was announced at the Berlin Film Festival.   The Wrap speculates Affleck may be replacing Christian Bale in the film.  Bale was spotted in Bartlesville in 2008, and told The Oklahoman’s George Lang he was scouting a possible film.

Oklahoma Film and Music Office Director Jill Simpson said she has not spoken with Affleck about making a film in Oklahoma.

Ben Affleck

Roger Ebert

The collective thumbs of movie lovers everywhere should be flying at half-staff this weekend when the final original episode of ABC’s syndicated series “At the Movies” airs after more than three decades of broadcasting.

The venerable movie-review show, that began on Chicago public television in the mid-1970s featuring dueling newspaper critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, will see its final curtain after the Aug. 14th show.

Gene Siskel

Current hosts A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune will usher out an era of syndicated television that was profoundly formative for many film lovers as well as scores of movie critics practicing the craft today in print, on the air and in various corners of the internet. Barely a working movie critic today was not provoked, challenged and inspired by the heated back-and-forth debate and sparkling insights provided by the show’s familiar format. A generation of critics owes the show a fond farewell.

Earlier this year, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which distributed “At the Movies,” and ABC Media Productions, which produced it, announced they were pulling the plug on the show after crunching some numbers and deciding that “it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable.”

Read that: the audience for intelligent, insightful film criticism is rapidly aging and younger audiences are much more interested in advertising sound bites, garish, red-carpet glamour and gossipy, insider-Hollywood programming that is more about marketing than thoughtful analysis of weekly studio and indie releases.

Through several incarnations, “At the Movies’ offered a weekly glimpse at what was coming to multiplexes and art houses everywhere, along with concise synopses and spirited evaluations (that for many years ended with a thudding thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict).

The frank, straight-laced Chicago Tribune critic Siskel and the contrarily erudite Chicago Sun-Times critic Ebert hosted the show through its leap from the public airwaves to corporate syndication and its eventual landing under the Disney umbrella.

With Siskel’s death in 1999, Ebert shared the balcony seats with a rotating group of guest critics until his Sun-Times cohort Richard Roeper assumed permanent co-hosting duties in 2000. Then, Ebert fell ill with cancer in 2006 and with the loss of his voice gradually ceded his spot to substitute critics.

In 2008, a messy corporate divorce saw both Ebert and Roeper exit the show, replaced in an ill-conceived bid to court younger viewers with the infamous “two Bens.”

Ben Mankiewicz, scion of Hollywood royalty and a radio and TV host, along with neophyte Ben Lyons, son of New York critic Jeffrey Lyons, were brought aboard to host a flashier, younger version of the show.

But after one poorly received season – and lots of brickbats from viewers and fellow critics – the two Bens experiment was abandoned and the highly respected duo of Scott and Phillips were brought in to restore some critical clout.

But corporate bottom-line considerations spelled the show’s demise.

Ebert, a Pulitizer Prize-winner still very active as the Sun-Times critic, characteristically sounded off frankly on the situation in his newspaper blog, Roger Ebert’s Journal.

“`At the Movies’ … didn’t fail so much as have its format shot out from beneath it. Don’t blame Disney. Don’t blame Tony Scott and Michael Phillips, the final co-hosts, critics I admire …. Don’t blame Ben Mankiewicz. Don’t blame my pal Richard Roeper, who didn’t fancy following the show in a ‘new direction.’ Don’t blame the cancer that forced me off the show. Don’t even blame Ben Lyons. He was the victim of a mistaken hiring decision.

“Blame the fact that five-day-a-week syndicated shows like ‘Wheel of Fortune’ went to six days. Blame the fact that cable TV and the internet have fragmented the audience so much that stations are losing market share no matter what they do. Blame the economy, because many stations would rather sell a crappy half-hour infomercial than program a show they respect. Blame the fact that everything seems to be going to hell in a hand basket.”

But in the cancellation of his beloved show, Ebert sees an opportunity. In his blog, he says that he and his wife, Chaz, are in negotiations for a new movie-review show. “We believe a market still exists for a weekly show where a couple of critics review new movies,” he wrote.

“I can’t reveal details about the talks we’re deeply involved in,” Ebert said. “I can say that the working title was ‘Roger Ebert presents Fill in Words Here,’ and that it has now become ‘Roger Ebert presents At the Movies.’ Gene Siskel and I started using that title way back in 1980, when we left PBS for Tribune Broadcasting. I can also say the Thumbs will return.”

And to that, we say a resounding “thumbs up!”

- Dennis King

BY GENE TRIPLETT

“The Killer Inside Me” has quietly stolen onto pay-per-view television.

The controversial $13 million feature film that was shot in and around Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Enid, Tulsa and Cordell in May and June 2009 will also open Aug. 20 for a week-long run on the big screen at Tulsa’s Circle Cinema Theatre, marking the first time the movie has been shown theatrically in the state where it was filmed.

“It’s opening up that Friday, it’s going to get a full week run and maybe longer if it does good,” theater office manager Chuck Foxen said.

Meanwhile, local movie fans who can’t wait to see what all the fuss has been about can pay $5.99 to watch it on their home screens right now, if they have access to Cox Communications’ On Demand cable television service.

Bruce Berkinshaw, director of product management at Cox, said “The Killer Inside Me” began running on pay-for-view in Oklahoma City and Tulsa on July 6, and will probably be available on the service through October.

The film is still playing on 14 theater screens around the country, and had racked up a total of $146,444 in domestic ticket sales as of last Sunday. It had its official U.S. opening in New York on June 18.

“‘The Killer Inside Me’ is currently in limited theatrical release and gradually expanding its market,” said Jill Simpson, director of the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, which was instrumental in bringing the movie’s production crew to the state last year.

“It’s not uncommon for a little film to start in the major cities and they roll it out and they build screens up,” Simpson said. “I was a little bit surprised when I saw the On Demand, but I know that there’s all kinds of models now for distribution that are not like they used to be. It’s kind of the way it’s going to be in the future, where these schedules are collapsed and it’s available at home as quickly as it is in the theater.”

No theatrical run has been set for Oklahoma City. The film will be released Sept. 28 on DVD.

“The Killer Inside Me,” directed by Michael Winterbottom (“A Mighty Heart”) with Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba in the lead roles, is based on a 1952 paperback novel by Anadarko-born pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson. Set in a small west Texas town in the mid-1950s, it centers on a seemingly mild-mannered deputy sheriff (Affleck) whose repressed homicidal urges are unleashed by a beautiful and defiant prostitute (Alba) who likes to play rough.

Scenes of graphic violence in “The Killer Inside Me” reportedly shocked many audience members during its premiere screening at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and at the time some critics and industry observers predicted the film’s producers would have a hard time landing a major distributor for it.

But IFC Films stepped in during the final days of the festival and paid about $1.5 million for the North American distribution rights to the film.

The only thing more mind-numbing than watching 57 movies over 123 straight hours without sleep would be watching someone else watching 57 movies over 123 hours without sleep.

That was the assignment given to Vice magazine editor and bon vivant Gavin McInnes during a five-day marathon of movie watching in 2008 that is weirdly documented in the off-the-reservation DVD “A Million in the Morning.”

Sponsor Netflix hired McInnes to report on the proceedings and Jason Goldwatch to direct a film documenting the event, billed as the Netflix World Movie Watching Championships. Contestants were vying for $10,000 prize plus a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive hours watching movies. Participants were sequestered in a plexiglass booth in New York’s Times Square where judges and spectators could observe them watching a non-stop string of movies, old and new.

Initially, Netflix reportedly planned to use the finished film as a promotional infomercial and to offer it on its website. But something went horribly and hysterically awry during the five days of filming that caused the DVD rental giant to back out of the project, leaving McInnes and the production entity Decon holding hours and hours of raw footage, which they’ve cut into a renegade DVD that’s by turns hilarious, profane, nonsensical and utterly delirious.

Disavowed by Netflix, “A Million in the Morning” slyly capitalizes on all that did go awry during the making of the documentary – namely that McInnes, having vowed to stay awake during the entire marathon, found himself going stark raving loony from sleep deprivation. As the host grew increasingly disoriented, he began wandering off into the streets of Manhattan on wildly incongruous tangents (a babbling confrontation with fitness guru Richard Simmons, an impromptu encounter with Times Square fixture, the Naked Cowboy, and so on).

The film does cast a glancing look at the array of movie watchers competing for the prize – a competitive eating champion from New York, a Sri Lankan who holds several bizarre endurance records, an East Indian who had the then-standing movie-watching record, a Texan who appeared on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” But mostly it chronicles McInnes’ “spiral down a rabbit hole of sleepless dumbsnoozery.”

As he consumes increasing amounts of Red Bull, coffee and alcohol, McInnes ricochets between the competition (in which one contestant declares “West Side Story” “absolutely atrocious”) and his own babbling asides (including a crackbrained mathematical theory that leads him to conclude “that we don’t exist’).

It’s all very edgy and very funny, like a reality TV version of Martin Scorsese’s night-in-hell comedy “After Hours,” or a looser, more profane spin on Dave Attell’s “Insomniac.” It’s guerilla filmmaking at its zaniest.

By the way, the title derives from a particularly demented moment in the inkling of dawn when McInnes looks at his watch and declares the time “a million in the morning.”

“A Million in the Morning” retails for $12.98. You can purchase the DVD and watch clips on the film’s website www.amillioninthemorning.com.

- Dennis King

Kin’s project recaps Warner Brothers’ legacy in film

BY GENE TRIPLETT

When the name Warner Brothers is mentioned, some people picture Humphrey Bogart as the sweaty double-crosser in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” or a fiery-eyed Bette Davis hot-boxing cigarettes in almost every movie she ever made. Others see Bugs Bunny tormenting wabbit-hunting Elmer Fudd, or hear the carnival-spirited Looney Tunes theme “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” and Porky Pig stuttering “That’s all, Folks!”

But few people can name the siblings who made them all famous.

A number of older movie fans remember the line “Jack L. Warner in Charge of Production” that used to appear beneath the familiar WB shield at the beginning of every film, but Harry, Albert and Sam, the other three brothers who founded Hollywood’s only family-owned studio, are largely forgotten by today’s moviegoing public.

“It’s very simple,” said Harry Warner’s granddaughter, Cass Warner Sperling. “(Jack) out-survived everybody.”

Jack L. Warner also was the most visible of the clan, attending every important Hollywood function, dining and drinking in all the right places, and welcoming all the publicity he could get.

Cass Warner Sperling

That’s why Sperling wrote a book and filmed a documentary, both titled “The Brothers Warner” — to set the record straight and give credit where it’s due in the building of this Hollywood family dynasty.

The award-winning documentary, an official selection at 33 film festivals worldwide, has just been released on Warner Home Video.

“Harry was actually the spokesperson and the president in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s,” Sperling said of her grandfather. “So, if you’d asked anybody back then, they would have known who Harry was. He was the strategic general and the one who kept that place going financially for 50 years.”

Sperling, 62, spent 30 years researching personal and studio archives and conducting interviews with relatives, actors, executives and others with close ties to the Warners. What she has assembled are fascinating never-before-seen photos and footage showing filmmaking’s crude beginnings, the “Golden Age” of Hollywood and the story of four sons of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents — real name Wonskolaser — who developed a powerful work ethic early on.

From a storefront theater, complete with a sheet for a screen and borrowed funeral parlor chairs for seats, they went on to build not only one of the leading Hollywood studios but one of the most innovative and groundbreaking dream factories in the industry.

It was Warner Bros. Studios that had the vision and the courage to introduce sound to commercial feature films with “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, when the majority of the filmmaking community on both sides of the camera either dismissed it as a passing novelty or feared its career-ending implications.

“I also wanted to bring to the forefront that I’m very proud of the fact that they had a conscience, felt a responsibility for using this powerful communication tool, film, to ‘educate, entertain and enlighten,’” Sperling said. “It was more than just entertain. And they were really the first ones to take stories out of the headlines of newspapers and address the issues of the day that affected most people on the street.”

The studio became the first to address the need for prison reform in 1932 with “I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang” starring Paul Muni.

When Adolph Hitler rose to power, Warner Bros. was the first major studio to stop doing business with Nazi Germany in 1934, despite the country’s lucrative film market, years before other U.S. film companies dared to follow suit.

The first major Hollywood film with a blunt anti-Nazi message, “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” starring Edward G. Robinson, was released by Warner in 1939.

The studio became known — and criticized — for its violent gangster films of the ’30s and early ’40s, which made stars out of such Warner contract players as Robinson, James Cagney, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart. Critics charged glorification of crime, but Harry Warner insisted the message was “crime does not pay.”

Warner also holds the distinction of being the first and only movie studio to be sued by the Ku Klux Klan over the 1937 release of “Black Legion,” starring Bogart as a machinist who loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker and is persuaded to join a secretive hate group that intimidates foreigners through violence. The KKK lost the action.

And along with the relevant movies, there are also the Warner classics such as “Casablanca,” “The Maltese Falcon,” “Sergeant York,” “Now, Voyager,” “Life with Father,” “White Heat,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “A Star is Born” (1954 version), “East of Eden,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Giant,” “Moby Dick,” “The Searchers,” “Auntie Mame” and “The Nun’s Story,” to name but a few.

And of course there were all those great cartoons that were as much for adults as kids.

It’s a movie studio that deserves to have a movie made about it.

And in addition to Sperling’s documentary, a feature film is actually in the works. Rights to her book have been optioned by producer Alain Goldman (“La Vie En Rose”) and a screenplay is about to be delivered by Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote “Goodfellas” and “Casino.”

“Nick is incredibly thorough,” Sperling said. “He’s an ex-journalist, and I just admire him tremendously, his wanting to know details and things like that.”

So, who would Sperling pick to play the four Warner brothers?

“I just don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the ’80s, even before the book came out in ’93. Back then, the perfect people would have been Jack Nicholson as Jack and Dustin Hoffman as my grandfather. But, you know, here we are.”

Sperling’s up for any suggestions.

BY GENE TRIPLETT

Here are a couple of things about Clint Eastwood that might surprise most people:

1. He’s not particularly enamored of guns.

2. One of his best friends is a major film critic.

Now, considering that he rode to fame on a horse, blowing away five bad guys at a time with a single-action Colt .45, and then drove on to superstardom in an unmarked police car, single-handedly offing whole gangs of robbers with a .44 magnum (“the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off”), bringing an avalanche of criticism down on his sandy-haired head in the early days of his career, with accusations of fascist politics and being possessed of no creative ambition beyond making lucrative, violent action flicks, you have to ask yourself: Do I know how he became one of the most respected filmmakers in the world in his later years?

Well, do ya, punk?

Film critic Richard Schickel knows. He’s followed Eastwood’s career not only as a journalist but as a close friend of 34 years.

Clint Eastwood and Richard Schickel

chronicles Eastwood’s journey, from the actor’s first bit part in “Revenge of the Creature” (1955) through his latest directorial effort, the Nelson Mandela biopic “Invictus,” in a sumptuously illustrated, 288-page book, “Clint: A Retrospective,” published in  March by Sterling Publishing ($35).

A 24-page excerpt from the book can be found in a new DVD box set, “Clint Eastwood: 35 Films, 35 Years at Warner Bros.,” which was released in February. Containing 34 of Eastwood’s Warner films, from “Where Eagles Dare” (1968) through “Gran Torino” (2008), plus a 22-minute, Schickel-directed documentary, “The Eastwood Factor,” it is the largest box set ever dedicated to a single artist. Suggested retail price: $179.98.

Schickel met him in 1976, the year Eastwood directed and starred in the now-classic Western “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”

“It just sort of grew like friendships do,” Schickel said in a recent phone interview from his Los Angeles home. “We hang out a certain amount of time; we talk a lot on the phone because I’m in L.A., and he’s largely in Carmel when he’s not doing postproduction or whatever. So, when he’s in town, we often have dinner or something like that.”

When asked what Eastwood is like offscreen, Schickel‘s instant response is, “Well, he’s not Dirty Harry, I’ll tell you that.

Eastwood as "Dirty Harry."

“Clint has a good, low-key sense of humor. He’s a very ironic sort of a guy. He’s always open to the oddnesses that we all encounter in life and takes a sort of amused interest in them. You know he is a hard-working man, there’s no question about that. On the other hand, it seems to me that he paces himself very well through life. He gets a lot of work out, but I would never call him a workaholic.”

Schickel said Eastwood sets aside plenty of time to be with his wife of 14 years, Dina, and his younger children, and loves to “goof around playing golf or traveling.”

As a friend, Schickel describes him as “dutiful” and “loyal.”

“He’s the kind of man who, if he makes a commitment, whether to make a personal appearance or have dinner, he will be there. I mean there’s never any last-minute feeble excuses.”

On Eastwood the artist, Schickel speaks from 43 years of experience as a film critic for Time and Life magazines and as an award-winning documentary filmmaker, expressing the utmost admiration and appreciation for most of Eastwood’s work (with the exceptions of “Firefox” (1982), “The Rookie” (1990) and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (1997), which he considers to be directorial missteps).

He especially holds 1971′s “Dirty Harry”— directed by Eastwood mentor Don Siegel — in high regard, despite criticism from many quarters that it was an excessively violent, “fascist” statement.

“I think he’s had an honorable career,” Schickel said. “Even ‘Dirty Harry’ is in a certain sense an el primo genre movie. I mean, it’s about a tough cop. There’s a lot of movies about tough cops, (but) there’s a lot of soulfulness in ‘Dirty Harry.’ He’s a lonely guy. He has trouble relating with women.”

Schickel also thinks “Dirty Harry,” like many of Eastwood’s films, demonstrates the horrific consequences of violence rather than glorifying it.

Eastwood as "Blondie" in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

“Like most Americans, if you believe the polls, he’s not a gun freak,” Schickel said. “It kind of comes up in ‘White Hunter, Black Heart.’ The character he’s playing in that wants to shoot this elephant. He says, ‘I don’t really understand that. I never shoot guns except pretend guns in movies. I don’t hunt animals.’

“And I think that’s a mainstream American view. He’s come out on subjects like abortion rights, and that’s a mainstream American view. He’s fiscally conservative, he’s for balanced budgets and so forth, but socially he’s kind of liberal-minded, which I kind of think America is, actually. There’s a lot of stir and kerfuffle about tea parties and stuff like that, but most Americans aren’t that way. Those are distinctly minority views.”

And Schickel thinks Eastwood’s mainstream philosophies shine through in his characters and his films, partially accounting for his tremendous and long-lasting popularity with the moviegoing public.

“I think that appeals to people. I think he’s low-key and sensible and not an ideologue, and all that appeals.”

But Eastwood also applies his low-key approach to acting, which apparently doesn’t appeal to Oscar voters, who have awarded his directorial talents (“Unforgiven,” “Million Dollar Baby”) but continually passed him over for a best actor trophy.

“Everybody won Oscars for that (‘Million Dollar Baby’). Hilary Swank did. Morgan (Freeman) did. (Eastwood’s) was a terrific performance. I don’t quite understand that prejudice, because the thing about Clint is that he loves actors and acting and being around actors. … They don’t quite want to acknowledge his expertise as an actor.”

Schickel said Eastwood’s acting style is understated and subtle — maybe too subtle for Academy voters’ tastes.

“He’s not a guy who rips and tears and snorts a lot.”

And that’s another trait that makes Eastwood such good company, onscreen and off, according to the critic.

“He manages all this stuff with considerable grace and good humor,” Schickel said. “He’s a very good friend, I think. I mean, he’s very loyal. … Amongst my circle of friends, I really count him as a major friend.”

BY GENE TRIPLETT
The battle of the exes is the main event on an Oscar night that promises to be long and arduous thanks to the wisdom of Academy governors, who figured doubling the number of Best Picture nominees will boost the show’s sagging ratings.

Jeremy Renner in "The Hurt Locker."

It’s really down to two of the 10, with  two former spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow facing off for top pic and director prizes—unless Quentin Tarantino and his “Inglourious Basterds” spring a surprise attack.

Other top categories seem easy to call. Or are they? Here’s how I see things playing out.

Best picture

Jason Reitman’s heartbreaking and timely comedy-drama about a high-flying bachelor who fires people for a living and can’t make connections of the human kind is my favorite of all the contenders, but “Up in the Air” lost some altitude at the Golden Globes when James Cameron’s blue giant “Avatar” weighed in with its stunning technical virtuosity and novelty appeal. But it’s tied with “The Hurt Locker” in nominations (9 each), and after blowing away the competition at the BAFTA Awards in London, this taut indie war drama from producer-director Kathryn Bigelow could defuse her ex-husband’s 3-D box office rocket. Barring an “Inglourious” upset, that is.

Should win: “Up in the Air.”

Will win: “The Hurt Locker.”

Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart"

Best actor

Some voters might think George Clooney was simply playing himself as the high-flying playboy of “Up in the Air,” but he actually gave the most perfectly nuanced and affecting performance of his career, imminently worthy of Academy gold. But Clooney and co-nominees Colin Firth (“A Single Man”), Morgan Freeman (“Invictus”) and Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker”) will have to step aside for The Dude. Jeff Bridges has said Bad Blake, the booze-soaked, washed-up country singer he portrayed in “Crazy Heart” was a part he was born to play, and he’s right. He nailed it. After four no-wins in as many decades, it’s time to recognize His Dudeness.

Should and will win: Jeff Bridges.

Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron in "The Blind Side"

Best actress

Getting nominated for a “Razzie” (“All About Steve”) and an Oscar (“The Blind Side”) in the same year has gotta be a first, but Sandra Bullock pulled it off and laughingly said she’s proud of both honors. You have to love her for that. Everyone seems to love the strong, sassy football mom portrayal that won her an Academy nod, too. Brilliant newcomers Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”) and Carey Mulligan (“An Education”) still have

some dues to pay, and while Helen Mirren (“The Last Station”) almost invariably gives Oscar-caliber performances, it’s Meryl Streep who’s most deserving for her funny, sensitive, spot-on reading of Julia Child in “Julie & Julia.” But with Golden Globe and Broadcast Critics awards already gracing her mantle, odds seem to favor Bullock.

Should win: Meryl Streep.

Will win: Sandra Bullock.

Chrstoph Waltz ("Inglourious Basterds")

Best supporting actor

Matt Damon (“Invictus”), Woody Harrelson (“The Messenger”), Christopher Plummer (“The Last Station”) and Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones”), superb as they all may be (especially Tucci, profoundly loathsome as a child molesting serial killer) might as well phone in sick. Christoph Waltz is perfectly chilling and wickedly funny in four different

languages as the Jew-hunting Nazi colonel in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” His was the most effectively contemptible villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker.

Should and will win: Christoph Waltz.

Mo'Nique in "Precious"

Best supporting actress

As in the supporting actor category, Penelope Cruz (“Nine”), Maggie Gyllenhaal (“Crazy Heart”), Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick might as well send their regrets and stay home, although the last two gave lovely turns as the women who teach Clooney’s carefree character some life lessons in “Up in the Air.” Mo’Nique has it running away for her soul-scorching performance as the abusive, bile-spewing mother in Lee Daniels’ “Precious.” She was heat lightning personified.

Should and will win: Mo’Nique.

Kathryn Bigelow directing "The Hurt Locker"

Best director

Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”), Quentin Tarantino (“Inglourious Basterds”) and Lee Daniels (“Precious”) helmed great movies all, but all eyes are on the contest between the amicably divorced James Cameron (“Avatar”) and Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”). Many voters are impressed with gargantuan box office returns, which bodes well for Cameron, but if revolutionary technical advances and rich imagination are still qualifiers, he deserves to be crowned “king of the world” again. However, Bigelow’s taut and powerful take on war as a drug (the script of which was recommended to her by Cameron) was a nerve-shattering knockout. Never mind the low attendance it drew. There are also a lot of people who’d like to see Bigelow become the first woman director to take home the statuette.

Should and will win: Kathryn Bigelow.

Original screenplay

Quentin Tarantino for “Inglourious Basterds.”

Adapted screenplay

Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner for “Upin the Air.”

Animated feature

“Up.”

Documentary feature

“The Cove.”

This weekend, it hit the wires that Kevin Smith, the director of “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and the upcoming “Cop Out,” was asked to leave a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank when the flight crew determined he was too heavy to fit in one of their seats.

In the hours following the flight, Smith sent out a flurry of Tweets from his popular Twitter account, @ThatKevinSmith, castigating the airline for ejecting him from the flight when he claimed he could easily pass the “arm rest test,” meaning he could fit between armrests in the seat.

According to Smith, he is not to the point where he cannot pass that test.

“I’m way fat, but I’m not there just yet,” Smith Tweeted.

More about the situation at  Staticblog.

- George Lang

Now that the 82^nd Academy Awards nominations have been announced, the silly season of movie punditry is in full swing.

Everywhere – from blogs such as this, to slick magazine layouts, to TV talk shows, water-cooler conversations, coffeehouse bull sessions and barroom arguments – movie “experts,” film buffs and popcorn junkies alike will fill up the days until the March 7 awards broadcast with nitpicky analyses of all things Oscar.

Already, we’ve seen floated these bits of Oscar arcana:

– Meryl Streep’s nomination for best actress for “Julie & Julia” is her 16^th, an all-time high. Following are Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson with 12 each. Wow!

– Kathryn Bigelow, nominated as best director for “The Hurt Locker,” is only the fourth woman ever nominated for directing. And how can you miss the fact that she’s competing against her ex-husband James Cameron, who’s nominated for “Avatar?” Juicy!

– The field of 10 nominees for best picture is a first in decades for the staid old Academy and opens up a whole field of debate concerning the artistic merit of tasteful, low-budget art films and big-budget studio juggernauts. Hmm. Interesting.

– “Up” is only the second full-length animated feature nominated for best picture. The first was “Beauty and the Beast” in 1991. Zowie!

– And this really obscure bit of trivia: “The White Ribbon” (“Das Weisse Band”) from Germany is the ninth predominantly black-and-white film to be nominated for cinematography since 1967, when a separate category for black-and-white was eliminated. Woo-hoo!

It’s all in good fun and helps generate some interest, excitement and heat through the dankest weeks of winter. But it’s always worth noting at this time of year that all our deepest insights and brainiest prognostications are just so much babble. All that really counts is the voting tally of 6,000 (give or take) elite members of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.

They’re a pampered gaggle of Hollywood insiders consisting of artists and professionals who work in the film industry. The Academy is made up of 15 branches representing a range of crafts vital to creating and marketing motion pictures.

Those branches and their membership numbers are: Actors (1,205), Art Directors (374), Cinematographers (200), Directors (366), Documentary (151), Executives (437), Film Editors (221), Makeup Artists & Hairstylists (118), Music (234), Producers (452), Public Relations (368), Short Films and Feature Animation (340), Sound (405), Visual Effects (279) and Writers (382).

In addition, there are various life and at-large members not assigned to specific branches, and all Oscar winners each year are automatically afforded Academy membership.

So, try as we might to read the tea leaves and divine some logic or pattern in the process, predicting Oscars is a futile exercise. Given a business that’s rife with political intrigue, boardroom wheeling and dealing, closely held loyalties, fierce grudges and fragile egos – not to mention an arcane voting process – it’s all about as precise and fair as voting for high-school prom queen.

But the Oscar babble goes on, and we’ll join in the blah-blah-blah occasionally from way out here in the cheap seats. So pass the popcorn, please.

– Dennis King